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Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Galatians 1:6–12
Today we begin reading Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.
Galatia was a region in Asia Minor,
in what is today Turkey.
Paul had preached the Gospel there
because of an illness.
The Galatians welcomed him.
They cared for him.
They listened to him.
They received the Gospel with joy.
But after Paul left,
other missionaries came.
They told the Galatians that faith in Christ was not enough.
They said:
You must also follow the law of Moses.
You must be circumcised.
You must observe all the rules.
Only then can you be saved.
Paul is shocked.
He says:
I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from the Gospel.
For Paul, this was not a small mistake.
It touched the heart of Christianity.
How are we saved?
By our own achievements?
By keeping every rule?
By proving ourselves worthy before God?
Or by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?
The apostles had already answered this question.
We are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus.
The Gospel is not a burden placed on our shoulders.
It is not a transaction.
It is not:
Do this,
and God will love you.
The Gospel is good news:
Christ loved us first.
Christ died for our sins.
Christ rose from the dead.
Christ gives us new life.
Paul knew this from experience.
He had once been Saul,
a strict Pharisee,
zealous for the law.
He thought he was righteous.
He even persecuted the Church.
But on the road to Damascus,
he met the risen Christ.
Everything changed.
Saul became Paul.
The persecutor became an apostle.
The man who trusted his own righteousness
began to say:
I count everything as loss
because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
This is why Paul defends the true Gospel so strongly.
If we add too much to the Gospel,
we lose grace.
If we remove the cross,
we lose salvation.
If we make ourselves the center,
we lose Christ.
Today we can ask:
What voices pull me away from the Gospel?
Do I still try to earn God’s love?
Do I need my own Damascus moment,
where Christ becomes the center of my life?
May we receive the Gospel the way Paul did:
as grace.
Let us make our faith visible through acts of charity.
And let us live the Gospel,
free to serve others.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Content License
© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
(Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).